


A house inside of you

by levendis



Series: Prompt Fics [28]
Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-04
Updated: 2015-12-04
Packaged: 2018-05-04 21:08:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 702
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5348552
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/levendis/pseuds/levendis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Doctor is dying. He can deal with that later, though. He has all the time in the world. Spoilers for "Heaven Sent".</p>
            </blockquote>





	A house inside of you

**Author's Note:**

> for anon, who requested: Twelve h/c, souffaldanny fluff and happiness, Twelve!whump

The Doctor is dying. He can deal with that later, though. He has all the time in the world. Besides, it’s not like he hasn’t done it before. Will do again. Over and over and over and -

He stops where he tends to stop, fifty-three stairs up. Lungs gasping, muscles shaking, neurons misfiring. He sinks down, face to the cold stone, and down below that. 

“You’re not giving up,” Clara says, her back turned to him. The memory of Clara he carries around with him. Close enough. Lights flickering back on. The cloister bells ringing. On the screen, himself-as-he-is, out there, reaching for the next inch like it’s a mile.

“No,” he says. “Obviously. Just taking a break.”

“You can’t hide here forever,” she says, turning finally towards him, wide eyes shining. That expression, one of his favorites, the _you’re an idiot but I accept that about you_ one.  

She reaches out, her hand on his face, fingers to pulse point: he’d shown her that after the dream crab incident, the Christmas she came back to him. The physiology of telepathy, how thin his metaphorical skin is there. How she can feel his hearts beating and his thoughts below that, how he can feel her heart, her thoughts. How he _could_ , once. Now, of course, there’s nothing. And that’s a different sort of ache from the physical agony held just barely at bay. It’s the ghost of a touch but it’s enough. It has to be.

“Humans go their whole lives not reading each other’s minds,” a new voice says. “And we get on just fine.”

Clara raises an eyebrow. “Really? You want him here? Now?”

“It’s my fantasy. And I think I’ve earned the right to be self-indulgent.”

Danny Pink. So what if he wants Danny Pink here. So what if he wants to be forgiven. The problem, of course, is that he’d never bothered to remember enough about Danny for him to be anything more than a vague approximation. Serves him right, really. So he doesn’t turn around, instead closes his eyes and leans back to where he knows a body will be. Broad and solid, strong arms coming up around him.

And it’s okay if he feels fragile and inconsequential, it’s okay to be broken and borderline useless. It’s okay if all he really wants now is to be held.

“You don’t want him to forgive you,” Clara says. Because of course she knows what he’s thinking. Even when she wasn’t a figment of his imagination, she always knew what he was thinking.

“So what do I want,” he mumbles. Sinking down and then sinking below that. Seconds drifting. He’s dying, somewhere. Danny’s hand, or the hand he imagines Danny had, rough and calloused but warm, wrapped firmly around his wrist. Clara in front of him. He’s surrounded, he’s protected, he’s fine. Everything is fine so long as he doesn’t move, doesn’t wake up.

“What we all want,” Danny says. A bemusement, a faintly-remembered kindness in his voice. A better-remembered exasperation.

“And you’ll find it,” Clara joins in. “One day, even if it takes you an unfathomable amount of days. One day you will step back out into the world, and a day after that you will move on, and then if you’re very good and don’t annoy all prospective friends away, you will have this again. You will be loved.”

“PE never loved me. What does it say about me that I want PE to love me? Nevermind, don’t answer that. I need to wake up. I need, I need - ”

And he’s back. The salt air, the cold stone, the miles between him and the next step. The shattering, frayed-nerve pain. Exhaustion as a literal object, a weight inside him, pressing against his skin. The knowledge of what it is he’s about to do. Has done, will do again, over and over. One day it’ll be enough. One of these times will be the last time he pulls himself over this particular inch, one of these times will be the last time, the last -

 _Don’t even think about it_ , a voice inside him says. _I’ve taught twelve-year-olds with more stamina than you. Move it, soldier._

So he moves.


End file.
